I have to get to Jubilee. If what Mulch says is true, we’ve run out of time. Sarah has to get away, tonight.

I moan as I rise, drowning out the croaking of a bullfrog. I sway on my feet, slowly shuffling to the edge of the clearing and lean against a rough-barked tree, catching my breath.

With faltering steps, I make my way along the path to the river. I fall, striking my knees badly. I pick myself up and keep going.

When I reach the river, the cool water is a balm to my sunburnt skin and pummeled body. I submerge myself, savoring the relief, but swimming across is a painful task. When I get to the other side, I have to rest on the riverbank before I can go on.

It’s late by the time I make it to the plantation. Under the cover of the dark and the trees, I limp into Sarah’s cabin. Bessie starts as I enter. She’s sitting at a spinning wheel, feeling the fibers twine against her fingers. The turning of the wheel makes a whirr, the only noise in the room.

“Who’s that?” she calls when I step inside.

“It’s Henry,” I say.

The wheel stops. “You won’t let up till you get that girl killed.”

It’s a knife to my heart. “Has something happened?”

She sighs and purses her lips into a deep frown. “You got to get out of here and let that child be. Master done put her with Red now. Things’ll get worse for her if you two don’t stop.”

Blood rushes through my ears making her words sound dull. My heart splutters.

I stoop in front of her, my face level with hers. “I’m taking her with me. Tonight. I’m getting her free.”

She reaches out and pats my face. “You’re about as big a fool as she is.”

“Can you get a message to her? Can you warn her that I have a man helping me? Tell her not to be afraid. Tell her I’m here.”

Bessie shakes her head. “I can’t go stomping into the dining room, when they got a guest in there all the way from Tennessee. You got to forget about all this. Ain’t no point to keep fighting.”

I straighten up, my temper flaring. “How can you say that?”

She starts her spinning wheel back up, feeding the cotton into the wheel. “Some things just ain’t gonna be.”

“Well, they have to be,” I say. “That’s why you fight for them.”

She feels the line of thread and then pulls more cotton from a sack at her feet. Spinning.

“But you wouldn’t know about that,” I spit out. “You’ve spent so long groveling behind your masters, being grateful for every scrap they give you, that you don’t know how to want for yourself.” Her complacency is making me cruel. I know she’s just a crumpled widow who’s got all the hope crushed out of her, but I’m angry and I’m frightened for Sarah and I don’t stop. “Anyone else who’d been handed their freedom would be long gone,” I say. “But you handed yours back.”